Overview

January 14, 2020 - July 18, 2020

This exhibition explores the inner workings of an art collector’s mind through a selection of 82 works from George R. Kravis II Collection, which was gifted to the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art in 2018. Numbering more than 700 works, the Kravis gift includes an area of the visual arts new to the museum—industrial design—as well as fine art

A series of thematic sections mirror the progression of Kravis’s collecting interests: It Started Here; Radio Days; Pop Goes the Art; The Art of Architecture; and A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That. Beginning with the purchase of a 45-rpm record player at the age of twelve, Kravis’s passion grew from initial acquisitions of fine art for his home to a strategic pursuit that became a nationally recognized collection.

Selections range from the colorful, energized brushstrokes of Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann to the comic-book-inspired Pop Art of Roy Lichtenstein and from a 1950s Frank Lloyd Wright chair to Streamline Style radios from the 1930s and 1940s. The Tulsa-based businessman was one of the earliest and youngest founders of an FM radio station in the United States, KRAV, and went on to become a philanthropist focusing on art education.

The OSU Museum of Art is open Tues. thru Sat. 11am-4pm until August 19th! After the 19th, hours will change to Tues 11am-4pm; Wed-Thurs 11am - 7pm; Fri-Sat 11am - 4pm; and closed on Sun-Mon. Admission is always free!